mine, that's nice, of course, that's what it's about. so the piece is a nod to the rosie the riveter piece, you know the piece from world war ii. >> reporter: though rosie didn't face the dangers medical personnel do. the next time you hear -- ♪ god bless my home >> reporter: leave a piece of it for those who wear their mask in marks even when they take it off. jeanne moos, cnn, new york. >> and thanks very much to jeanne and thanks to all of you for joining us. "cuomo prime time" starts right now. i don't usually get to hand it off to you, chris, but i'm so glad you're doing better. take it away. >> what a pleasure. i loved watching you here at home. you're doing a great job, erin. appreciate it. i'm chris cuomo. welcome to "prime time." finally, finally, the white house is saying that it asked states what do they need to get testing right so we can re-open

safely? two months in it took them to ask this rudimentary question. so now here we are at step one. planning to get on the same page about testing. trump and pence celebrating, telling you to be proud of this miraculous moment. let's think news and all the trump applaud. this show is about the reality. we have a governor tonight who is on that call with the truth of how we got here and where we need to be. okay? now, what we have to talk about is the worry of why you don't want to go too soon. we all want to re-open, but look at georgia, we have atlanta's mayor who has eyes on the ground and a mayor, a message for all of us. and let's take a step deeper, what does opening too soon look like in major cities up in the northeast and on the west coast? we have an expert who will model our future. for all the doubts, for all the

politics, one thing has been consistent here. us. together as ever as one, we have kept this virus at bay. together, we will get back to where we want to be. what do you say? let's get after it. so, the federal task force says we need to double our capacity of testing and tracing before the u.s. can re-open. what does the president say? listen to him today. >> we have enough testing to begin re-opening and the re-opening process, we want to get our country open and the testing is not going to be a problem at all. in fact, it's going to be one of the great assets. >> it always has been the problem. it is the problem. and it will be the problem. okay?

testing and tracing. don't buy the hype. everybody wants to re-open. there is no division on that issue. okay? the president didn't come up with the idea of re-opening. we've all been asking the same question. every governor. every mayor of every big city. how? how can we re-open safely? that's the question that's been avoided. you know why? it's the hard one. and that's why states like georgia re-opened before they can properly test and trace. don't forget about the tracing because once you test and get people who are positive, what do you have to do then? manual labor. who did they touch? who were they around? let's reach out and get them. we have to test them, too. that's manpower and money. if we don't get it right, we know what happens. the virus will spread and it will be hard to control. nevertheless, what happened today in georgia? restaurants re-opening today. we keep asking governor kemp to come on.

i want him to address the concerns. i want to be fair and give him a chance to talk to you about why it was the right move. no buy. no response. but back with us is atlanta's mayor keisha lance bottoms. she's warning the people in her city to stay home. ms. mayor, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me again, chris. >> first, how's the family? >> we're yet holding on. we have a high school senior who hopefully will graduate in some form or fashion very soon. i mean, this is hard on all of us, especially those of us home with kids all day and those of us trying to put food on our tables. even as i watched the president today, i thought of my kids, things i tell my kids multiple times a day, be honest, be responsible, and somewhere along the way it seems that our president just didn't get that message and it's extremely

frustrating as a mayor watching where we are as a country as i look at people standing in line for haircuts and get their nails done. what we're essentially saying in georgia is go bowling and we'll have a bed waiting on you. that's not what our approach should be to covid-19. >> that's why we're watching georgia so closely because hopefully, you know, god forbid you guys don't pay the price of going early on the enthusiasm of what the president's been selling that it's time to re-open, we're ready to go. so you're in a tough spot. you put out a very powerful tweet today saying if you get your nails done, share these numbers with the manicurist about all the cases in the counties down around where you are. it's hard to be sideways on the -- with the governor. you know, he sets the rule. you cannot change the rule, but you are telling people to stay home. why take on this fight?

>> so, chris, it's interesting, just before i came on with you i was talking with my good friend, randall woodfin, the mayor of birmingham, alabama, and he is concerned that alabama in some form or fashion is headed in the same direction and we were discussing just that, what it is to be at odds with your governor. no mayor wants to be at odds with the governor. i'm sure your brother can attest to what that wrath can feel like. that should tell you how strongly i feel about that. what i said to randall is, you know, we can't sit by, he agreed with this, while people die. and when you look at the impact of covid-19 and especially the impact on african-american communities, i saw an article today on how hard it is going to hit the south. primarily because of african-american communities, health disparities, income disparities, and all these things that compound the problem of this virus.

we're frustrated. and all we have really right now are our voices to continue to push and hammer home to people to please stay home. being empathetic to people who need to go to work because they don't have food on their table, and that's why we need the federal government to do its part. make it easy for people to put money in their pockets so that we can flatten the curve. >> madam mayor, let's do something that's unpopular right now, okay? we can feel a lot of eyes roll and the politics of race coming up and people saying, oh, here they go again with the race card, like, oh, yeah, people really want to target african-americans, but here's the problem. it's not the argument -- your argument and the arguments of every major city with density and socioeconomic issues where you find african-americans and other minority populations, isn't that you're trying to hurt african-americans and people of

color, it's that by not paying attention to that population and what will happen with this particular policy, you are indirectly, or directly, arriving at the same place which is you are making those populations that already suffer the most from the underlying conditions and the condition of poverty, you are putting more strain on them whether you mean to or not. is that your reality? >> it is the reality, chris, and, you know, there are layers to this and i'm sure this is a conversation -- when you talk about not having medicaid expansion in many of the southern states and these pre-existing conditions because people are using emergency rooms as their primary care facilities. therein lies the problem when we start talking about capacity of our hospitals on a good day. grady hospital in downtown atlanta is near capacity because people are having strokes and

they have diabetes and they have asthma like my four children have. and then you add on top of that covid-19 and i think for us to continue down this path, so not only did we open up nail salons and hair salons and barbershops and tattoo parlors and all these -- >> restaurants. >> -- other places, now we're opening up restaurants and we're taking it even further and who knows where we're going to be next week, and as i listen to leaders in atlanta, our business leaders and the health professionals, people who have options, they all agree that it is too soon and why that rational thinking has not transferred to our governor really continues to baffle me. >> but we know why. you've got the bad argument. we're getting lucky that people are still educated and that this is not politics. this is not i'm going to play left or right because that's my

team. this is getting sick. this is watching my community lose the battle. you know, this is scary. so people are using information as power in a way that usually politics has a tendency to poison and yet you still got the wrong side of the argument. i want to re-open. you're going to lose in your own house, madam mayor. you know? people want to go out. if it's movie or no movie, show or hands, you lose. you know, who wants to go out and get some food? who wants to go and hang out with their friends? you know, you got the tough side of the argument. that's why the leadership is so important because it's easy to give people what they want. and not tell them that they're not going to have what they need once they get out there and are exposed. that's not easy to be. >> you know, chris, just a couple of days ago i overheard my husband who went into his office to grab something, tell someone in his office, i really

hate to have to go back home because he's sick of being inside of the house. my kids are sick of being inside of the house. we're all -- >> uh-huh. >> -- we love each other but we're sick of each other so it's real, and we don't have compounded on top of that a concern about how we will pay our mortgage or how we will put food on our tables. so i get that whether it's -- because somebody is antsy or somebody who has some real needs, people are ready to go about their day-to-day business, but for each day that we take five steps back, it's going to -- it's going to set us back even further and we're not going to get to the light at the end of the tunnel if we keep turning around and walking backwards and that's what we're doing in this state and that's what i fear is about to happen in alabama and across any number of states in this country. it's happening in texas and i'm not a scientist, i'm a lawyer, but i'm looking at the data. i'm looking at the numbers.

i looked at our 7:00 p.m. numbers today, we were up by 20, almost 25% in people testing positive, 28%, and people dying. that's not a partisan conversation, that's not a racial conversation. >> uh-huh. >> those are facts. >> listen, one of the reasons that we're worried and i keep coming back to you is because georgia does not meet the threshold. you want two weeks of cases going down. you guys still have a rate of increase. you don't have the testing. you don't have the tracing where it's supposed to be. the governor has not done a good job at articulating his optimism, but these -- this is tricky, man. good leadership, it's easy to give people what they want. it's hard to get people to do and believe in what they don't want to do at the time. madam mayor, i respect your political courage and standing up against the tide, and we will remain a platform for you to deliver the reality of how it goes. nobody's going to know today,

tomorrow, this week, even next week, how it is in your city and others in georgia. it takes time for the results of this move to manifest, and we will be here for you when they are. >> thank you. and, chris, what i hope most of all is that in two weeks i come back and i'm able to tell you the governor made a brilliant move, i was completely wrong because, again, if he's wrong, then i'm going to come back and i'm going to talk about the number of people who have died in our state and that's not a conversation that i look forward to having. >> there is no advantage in sickness. everybody wants to be right. we just want to play by what's rational. i understand your intentions and i hope there's no ugly toll to tell. take care, madam mayor. i'm here. we're a call away. >> thank you. >> best to the family. all right. so, georgia went early. why? feels good. appealing. people want to re-open.

okay? even if they poll and say they don't want to re-open if it's not safe, if they get the opportunity, they'll still probably take it. so now let's go to a state that's fighting to wait. to do it when it is right. what does that mean? we have a governor, he was on the phone with the president today. wasn't the celebratory event that trump and co. touted today. next. with advil, you have power over pain, so the whole world looks different. the unbeatable strength of advil. what pain?

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just today, two months in, the white house announced with great enthusiasm, guess what we did, we went to the states and said, what do you need to get testing right so we can re-open? and they say we're going to come up with a blueprint to do just that. okay?

now, the president is still saying testing really on the states, not on us, but the white house says it will act as, quote, a supplier of last resort for coronavirus tests, and we know test availability is a major key in re-opening. can you get tests? can you get the things to make tests? can you get labs to process the tests? do you have the manpower to do that collection, testing, and understanding of it, to trace? there are a lot of piece. so, was today the big day? let's bring in connecticut's governor, ned lamont, on the call today with the white house. always a pleasure, governor. i hope you and your family are healthy. >> same with you, chris. glad you're back. >> appreciate it. so you were on the call today. were you happy with the developments on the call? >> well, actually, the white house covid task force is fairly

constructive. everybody's sort of normal. it's a good policy meeting. occasionally, they say we're going to give you all the testing material you need based upon your plan then four hours later you see a press conference and everything goes off the rails. it's a little schizophrenic, to me. >> the idea that today they finally figured it out, governor, it was time to contact you and ask you what they need. like they came up with the idea. how many times on this show and anyone who will listen to you, let alone directly to the white house and the task force, have you asked for exactly what they asked you for today? >> we keep asking. that's for sure. we keep asking for masks. we keep asking for gowns. we keep asking for the reagents. and i'm tired of asking. we're working with the big labs. we're going to put together our own testing protocol and get it done, and god bless, if the federal government can come in

and help us out along the way, that would be a cherry on top. >> just to be clear, the president's right to say, look, the states have to do this, by the way, you want to do it. you don't want the federal government telling you how to apportion things in communities that they don't understand. you certainly -- you've never asked to shirk control of your own state, but what is not being mentioned is what it takes for you to do what you need. you have a huge deficit in your state because of the pandemic. do you have the money on the state and local level to deal with getting the tests, all the things for the tests, the tracing, once you find people have the virus, the manpower that is required and do all the different steps, the complexity, can you fund that? >> no, that's an enormous burden, but really, you know, the swabs, the reagents, again, that supply chain, that's where the federal government should take the lead.

i think they're catching up now but seeing is believing. >> but if you don't have the money then you're not going to be able to do it, and i haven't heard them discuss tracing because that's labor intensive, nor have i heard them discuss giving you guys the money you need at the state and local level to do what they say you need to do for yourselves. >> yeah, chris, the biggest money issue is the fact that if we have a $500 million deficit, 90% of it is related to a collapse of income tax and sales tax revenues. and that's true of virtually every state, blue and red, around the country. everybody hit to a different degree. and that's where the feds are going to have to step up, otherwise you're going to have the states slashing, cutting, raising taxes, doing everything it can to get through and that's going to delay economic recovery. this is a short-term need, but

if they don't provide the funding the states need, this thing's going to get prolonged badly. >> so where do you think we are in terms of you having the infrastructure and the funding and the confidence that you can keep people safe and start to re-open? >> we're going to re-open in a very thoughtful way, but it's worth remembering, chris, that we're a manufacturing state and we never closed down manufacturing. we do big construction projects like new york. we never closed down our big construction projects. we're a finance state, finance capital of america. we never closed that down. so most of our economy is going strong. unfortunately, the service economy was hit and hit bad and that led to unemployment and a big collapse in sales tax and it's going to be a while before people have the confidence to go back into that restaurant, into that bar, even if we open the

bar. that's not in the near term. >> and you make a lot of manufacturing but you don't make swabs. you don't make ppe. you don't make the reagent. you know, hopefully that will change. hopefully it will change in this country. god forbid if we don't get it right before the next wave. i guess the question is, people see georgia, they hear about texas, and they say, come on, gov, let's go, man. they're re-opening, i want to re-open. i want to get back. stop -- stop chumping me. stop choking our economic viability. that's very powerful medicine, politically. that's why the president keeps saying re-open and has a great idea to do it. how do you fight back against that? >> i think most people in this state know that's just rank pandering. i think what they did in georgia was absolutely backwards. instead of opening up essential businesses that you could do safely, they went for, you know, massage, restaurant and bar and all those places where the

social distancing is impossible to enforce. i just heard the mayor of atlanta say things are spiking in terms of infections and fatalities. it's tragic. they're a bit of a canary in the coal mine, aren't they? i think other states are going to watch and pray for the best. >> it's true, but, you know, we missed the part of preparing for the worst, you know what i mean? we hope for the best. we hope that georgia in re-opening that things are better than expected, but if you don't prepare for the worst, you're asking for trouble and i just want to make sure people understand, governor, that you're trying to do what you can and there are a lot of states in your position. you can't do what you can't pay for. yes, the responsibility is on you and other states like you but if you're not helped out on the fiscal level, you're not going to be able to pay for it. it's not going to happen. governor ned lamont, we're here for you to make your case to your constituents and the country. >> well, thank you, chris. i think the people of connecticut understand what we

want to do. we want to do it safely, we want to get them back to work. we're going to get that done, but, man, they don't want us to rush into it. >> i can't tell you -- i dream of the days of fighting over fishing spots with guys from connecticut. i can't -- i can't wait for those days to come again when we can do it safely and be out there having fights that we enjoy having instead of the fights that may cost us our lives. be well, governor. i look forward to being in touch. >> chris, come on up. we never close down fishing. you're more than welcome. welcome back. >> i fish -- i fish in your waters way more than the law allows. take care, governor. i'll speak to you soon. all right, so, i thought i was going to have great news, okay, so i tested negative. don't have the virus. good for me. i also tested to show that i have both antibodies. what does that mean? we'll talk about it with the doctor, but here's the new thing. do i really have great news? what does it mean that i have

the antibodies? am i really immune? do they know? right? we thought that would be the key. now we've got to talk about it. there's a lot of confusion about what it does and doesn't mean. so as i love to do most, let's take the questions that are really hard to answer and put them to dr. sanjay gupta. next. since 1926, nation has been on your side. we've been there in person, during trying times. today, being on your side means staying home... "nationwide office of customer advocacy." ...but we can still support you and the heroes who are with you. we're giving refunds on auto insurance premiums, assisting customers with financial hardships, and our foundation is contributing millions of dollars to charities helping with covid-19 relief. keeping our promise to be on your side. fechildren's claritin allergy relief. and relief from symptoms caused by over two hundred outdoor and indoor allergens. because to a kid, a grassy hill is irresistabale.

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all right. so what was the dream scenario? the best news in the land of bad news. you get sick. it's terrible. you beat it. thank god. and then you have antibodies. and it's like you're the coronavirus version of iron man. you know, that you won't get sick. you're too strong. here in new york, nearly 15% of

those tested have been shown to have antibodies. first that lets us know what we've all assumed, right, which is we're way behind in testing. way more people have had this than we expected, but is this good news or not? i thought i was going have this big great news, of all the bad news i've given you about me and my family. i tested negative. i have both antibodies. the short-term one and the long-term one. so i'm lucky, right? or not. why do we question it now? the world health organization issued a warning saying, chill out with these immunity passports, we don't know what the antibodies mean, if they mean anything. how did this happen? dr. sanjay gupta joins me now. well, gupta, you told me the good news is when you get done with the virus, you'll have the antibodies and boy, oh, boy, you'll be the envy. well, now what? >> yeah, i mean, you know, it's interesting, the presumably

you're going to have some protection against this. i think that's what most the virologists will say, that's what your friend, dr. anthony fauci, says as well. the thing is we need to prove it out. and that takes some time to actually show that these antibodies are actually going to protect you. the way that they do this is interesting, chris. you have the antibodies. you know that. what they'll do, they take some of your antibodies and put them in a test tube with some of the virus and they basically see, do your antibodies neutralize the virus? it's the neutralizing activity of the antibodies that you're really looking for and, again, presumably, there should be some neutralizing activity, but it may be different person to person. there's been some evidence recently, for example, people who have had more significant illness may have antibodies with more neutralizing activity. and people who've had milder illness may have antibodies with less neutralizing activity. but, again, we have to prove this out. i will say this, this one adage i always like, it's like absence of evidence is not evidence of

absence. what that means in this case is they haven't proven it yet, but that doesn't mean that the neutralizing activity isn't there. if you go back and you look at other coronaviruses like sars and mers, people who were tested even a couple years later did have antibodies, did seem to have some protection. it may have waned over time. that's why the convalescent serum, taking your blood, giving it to other people, that's why there's promise there. this belief that your blood is going to have antibodies that have neutralizing activity can help people currently dealing with the infection, so we'll see. i mean, like everything else, got to test it out. this one seems to have a little more promise, chris. >> why? why does it have more promise? it's pretty easy to decide or to test whether antibodies work to neutralize the virus. why don't we know yet? >> it does appear some people do. again, especially people who've had more severe illness.

you know, how long does it last and how strong is it going to be. so protection is there. is this months of protection? is this weeks? is this years? with sars and mers, they seem to have, you know, evidence of antibodies two to three years out, so if this behaves like other coronaviruses, then that's good. i mean, that's longer term. you know, we're four, five, months into this. to really know, you'd have to -- i mean, you'd have to test this again in a year. someone like you would have to be tested periodically to see, "a," do you still have the antibodies and, "b," when i take the antibodies and put it in a vial, what happens? do chris' antibodies neutralize the virus? i'll take it a step further, chris. they may find you have a diversity of antibodies. you know you have the short term and long term, but a diverse set of antibodies, some aren't doing much of anything but there's a few that are really high achievers in terms of neutralizing the virus, you could take some of those and clone them, called the

monoclonal antibody. expensive to do. that's actually a form of therapy. i've found some super neutralizing antibodies. those are my super achievers. i'm going to clone those and use those as a therapeutic. we're sort of into this right now. >> right. >> that's what a lot of people are trying to figure out. but i will say, out of china, there's been data, using convalescent serum, not going into the mon clonal antibodies. >> that it helped. >> that it helped. exactly. early evidence of that. >> now, sanjay says "we" and i'm putting the tough questions to him. this is not his problem, he's not in the business of figuring out whether the antibodies work. i just like to bust his chops. i will tell you this. i have become a doubter, and i'll tell you why. so as we both know, it's one of the frustrations that we share in this reporting, there's just not a heck of a lot known about covid-19. >> yeah. >> and they're feeling their way through. you know, now it's that when are

you most contagious, is it before you're symptomatic, or after you're symptomatic? >> right. >> is it airborne? there's all this different data. we're in a learning curve. that's scary and frustrating. you're doing a beautiful job of helping us along the learning curve. so i cleared the cdc threshold a while ago. okay? i do my 14 days. i get my 72 hours. a week after any symptom had started. then i get my test back weeks later and i have igm antibody. now, for the uninitiated, what sanjay explained to me, i'll explain to you, that means that's the first antibody your body makes which is a suggestion that you just started fighting this virus. well, how could i have just started fighting it when i was cleared two and a half weeks ago. you see what i'm saying? it's confusing. you know, were they right then? or are they right now? it's confusing. >> i could see where that's confusing. you know, we have a graph, and i'll make sure to pull this for your show tomorrow night, but

the ig -- so there's an early and a late. the early one does often start. the early antibodies start to get generated while you're still dealing with the infection and that curve sort of continues after your viral load has come down to zero and that antibody still continues but that goes away and then your long-term antibody sort of comes in at that point. so it is a little curious because i don't remember the exact time that you got infected, what, three weeks now since you were infected, roughly, is that right? >> at least. yeah. >> yeah. so, and that does seem a little bit long, but you just get tested for your antibodies and you have evidence of both, so you're right at that curve where you've had the early term, my guess, is disappearing and the long-term antibody is now coming in and my guess is if you tested again in a week, you'd probably have the long-term antibody in your system and probably not the short term. i don't know. that's a guess. but it does make sense that you would have the antibodies given that you are known to be positive. i think what gets confusing is if you get tested now, like, wait, i had the infection but i

don't have antibodies? why is that? that has happened in a few patients in china as well. >> that's happening to people. >> that is a bit concerning. >> people are beating the virus but not having antibodies and they're looking at to cross reference it with duration of illness and seems to be, like, a faustian bargain, you get through it quickly but don't build the antibodies and the people who get hit harder build the antibodies. again, we're still learning but here's what i know. if they want my blood, i'm being told they do, next week, i have never given blood in my life. and we both know why. it's because i'm a wuss. but i'm going to do it, although the likelihood i think is, like, 110%. but i'm going to do it. i'm going to shoot it. if they want the blood, i'm going to give it to them because that is the best thing i've heard of so far in terms of what i can do to help as someone who is sick.

so you say it, fauci says it, everybody says it, i'm going to do it and hopefully you'll be there to digitally hold my hand. >> i will absolutely digitally hold your hand. and you know what, chris, as you know, you can potentially help four people. steven hans who's the fda commissioner talked about this the other day. that will be very -- i think you'll feel very gratified by that, chris, knowing you. i know you don't like to give your blood. four people out there who are potentially dealing with this right now might be able to benefit from this. again, the data's early on all aspects of this story right now, but, you know, if this follows just other simple viral illnesses including other coronaviruses, you should have antibodies that do help neutralize that virus. that's my guess. and i think it's a good guess. it's -- this is presumable at this point. >> i will do it. >> the world health organization at first said, hey, look, we don't have any evidence of that then they took that statement down and said basically something along the lines we have no reason to believe that

the people who've been infected don't -- shouldn't have some sort of protection. >> i will do it if only to give you a good laugh when i go sideways and the idea of helping anybody get through this faster or not at all, i'll do it all day long. i'll give as much bloods as they want. sanjay, i love you. i'll talk to you soon. all right. now another thing to test, 14 days quarantine. why 14? 72 hours, no fever. why 72 hours? seven days after your initial symptom, 72. why seven days? are they just picking these numbers because they're round numbers? is this science? is this something that has to be recalibrated? i think this is something to talk about. we have a coronavirus science expert who's going to talk to us about that and what does it look like if you open too early? forget about graphs. what does it look like? let's model it with someone who restaurants have always been there for you.

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these periods that we're all living by, 14 days of quarantine if you're sick, 72 hours without fever you need in order to clear, et cetera. are they just arbitrary? and let's forget about the graphs and the flattening and the curve. what would a community look like if re-opening goes wrong?

the good news is we have ali mokdad with us. he's one of the scientists modeling projections at the university of washington. professor, thank you for joining us on "prime time." >> thank you, and i'm so happy to hear you're negative and tested positive for antibodies. >> yes. i don't know what it will mean, but i'll take good news whenever i can find it, and thank you, professor. so help me understand the numbers. 14 days of quarantine. 72 hours fever-free. seven days from the onset of symptoms. cynically, i would say these are just round numbers that you guys picked, they don't have any clinical meaning. am i wrong? >> yes, you're wrong, but, so 14 days, let me take the 14 days and the same will apply to the other. so we do have an investigation for every phase, so we asked you when you came in contact with the person who had the disease and when you got the disease, you know, so we have an average and we have a range and we take

the maximum in this case to be on the conservative sides and for covid-19 the maximum is 14 days from when you are exposed to when you get the disease and the rest is the same, exactly the same. >> 72 hours. is it really 72 hours? or is that just another nice round number? >> no, it's 72 hours on the conservative side, yes. >> so you're picking an arbitrary number but you're doing it that represents a range and it's the conservative number. so, yes, it's good because it's round. it's two weeks. it's one week. it's something that's easy to access intellectually and habitually but it's a function of science. >> of course. scientific. everything we do is scientific. a history of outbreak investigation, incubation period and we know what's the incubation period and we tell everybody that's your incubation period, be careful this 14 days in this case. you will be contagious and you could spread the virus to anybody else or if you don't get it, at the end of 14 days we test you and you're negative and

you don't have the disease. >> hmm. okay. so now we see the graphs. people are learning what a flattened curve means and that it's still about a rate of acceleration. even if it's flattening, you still have more cases coming in. that's why we're worried about something like georgia. but what does a community look like when it re-opens too soon? so day one, it looks like a lot of happy people do what they couldn't wait to do. day five, day ten, probably the same. but as you say, once you start getting two weeks out, what starts to happen if you weren't ready to re-open and you're not testing and tracing and distancing? >> so that's very good question. so because it's a 14 days, when you start relaxing today, it's 14 days when you see the impact. so you'll have a false sense of security for 14 days. so state like georgia relaxing today in 14 days they will see the impact of that. and reality what you know from previous experience, when we implemented these measures, we've seen a decline of the

curve and it was coming down. go back again and then you'll have more mortality, of course, and you'll have more demand on your health facility. that's what you're trying to avoid right now by asking people to say at home because we don't want to overwhelm our hospitals. we're already overwhelming them and they're already at the breaking point and we're adding now more to it. so that's a big concern at this moment to open prematurely. if you mention georgia, for example, georgia is still going up so we expect the most demand on the medical facilities to be tomorrow in georgia. so a governor in georgia, still going up, relaxing a measure, that's premature. i mean, he's not doing it when it's coming down so that's a big concern for us. >> professor ali mokdad, please come back on the show as we learn more to help us kind of put it in perspective. i appreciate it. you made that much more understandable. >> thank you, my pleasure. take care and be safe. >> thank you, you, too. be healthy. you and the family. all right. now, you know what you're

betting on when you open too soon. that your community will be okay with the increase in cases of sick and even death. that's the balance. how much do you want to be out there versus how much you care about the cost. and let me remind you why that cost matters because it's not just you just because you avoid the cost. what about the people who have what about the people who have to deal with it in the hospitals? remember the frontline workers. my favorite part of shows, these days. the shower of love for the lifesavers in nyc. listen. >> i love it. i love the me surrendering to the we. together, as ever, as one. we know what we're doing, you men and women, on the front lines in the hospitals.

thank you for keeping us safe. i promise we'll keep fighting to have people do things as safely as possible cause we know you're paying the price. now, i showed you this awesome photo friday night. remember the lawn in bryant park? mowed. right? the mowed lawn there. the lawn itself is closed right now. but bryant park is open. we all want everything open again, right? who doesn't? there's never been a division. that is bs political pandering. the president didn't create the idea of reopening. it's always been about how? i have a closing argument tonight. okay? you cannot be played for a sucker. we got to be on the same page about what maerttters and what doesn't. fact versus fiction. let's get after it. >> cuomo prime time. brought to you by progressive insurance. save when you bundle auto, home, or motorcycle insurance. visit progressive.com. oh, that's a good one. wait, what's that?

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here is my argument. the idea that there is a division or some kind of partisan split on whether or not we want to reopen is ridiculous. it's a fiction. it it's never been about anybody, if they want it. it's about how. always, it's been about how. how do we do it safely? testing. tracing. now, finally, today, two months in, trump and pence are asking questions about that to the governors. what do you need? they're celebrating phone calls with these people. asking them, what do you need? which is what the governors have been telling them for weeks. the suggestion that this is a remarkable sign of progress, i'm sorry, it's fiction. you have heard governor after governor, on this show, and everywhere they can get attention, asking for exactly this, not for weeks, for months.

>> we have to do more. >> we need more testing. >> you need to do more testing. >> we've got to have more testing than we have. >> i'm not going to give trump and pence credit for finally arriving at the right conclusion. let state tv do that. let the trump grumps say that we're being unfair. it took two months to get to step one. come on, man. and a week or so ago, trump was encouraging people to liberate states that asked people to do the only damn thing that has made any difference in controlling this virus. stay home. okay. so he's new. just got -- on testing. okay. but he still wants the states to do it. but here's the problem now. he knows the states can't pay for what he's asking them to do. the kits. the manpower for the processing and the collection and the tracing. they want you to jump up and down and celebrate this amazing effort. this public-private sector

partnership, coming together. two months in. still, just got one company making swabs. we're just starting, now, to address this in the way that we always needed to do it. and you know how you can tell that these guys, trump and co, know they haven't had a really handle on this, despite all their posts? reopen. reopen. i want to reopen. you ever hear trump mention schools? nope. you know why? because he knows you mess with kids and schools, and reopening the wrong way, and even the teflon don will pay a political price. some 38.6 million public school kids already know they're not going to be sitting at a desk again this year. and a lot of those kids are going to have to figure out where they get their meals. now, how can we be talking about reopening and getting back and let's do it now, when people don't have anywhere to put their kids? how can parents go to work when they don't have any place for their kids to be because the schoo

schools aren't open? you know it don't make sense because it's just hype. don't be a sucker. okay. they are pushing a fiction. they know parents can't go to work if there's no place for their kids. they know the states can't afford paying this stuff but they're balking at paying for it. that's nothing to celebrate. just think about it. you want to send kids back to school, too? okay. how many in the class? how many in the bus? what about gym class? what do they eat? seeing how the meals are a huge need. no plan. no grasp of that fact. what's your commute going to look like? we need to go back to work. transit workers are dying, at alarming rates. they can't get the ppe they need. still, don't make it in this country. still, no plan to make it in this country. fewer buses and subways means what? more people on the ones that right? crowds. density. illness. you think grocery store shelves are slim now? food plants are closing now. you saw with the whtyson guy sa.

it's braeksi it's breaking down the supply chain. cost of meat is going to spike. look. we all want to go to a restaurant. okay? what does it help if it's not safe to show up. are you going to go just because you can? we'll watch the test in georgia, but i know my answer. do you know yours? these are fundamental questions. we're nowhere near having good answers and that's a fact, not a fiction. but you know what trump and pence, and too many others know? you know what sells in politics? fiction. telling you what you want to hear. you want to reopen? yeah. deduct the fact that you had plenty of early warning to do something about this. and you'll duck it and say, well, it was all china's fault. and, now, the testing. you've been knowing about it forever. and you haven't done anything till today, so you'll duck it and say it's the governors' fault. i'm telling you, this is the end of the argument. okay? the reason these governors are doing well in the polls is because they're being straight with you, even when the information's